My Lords, I support Amendments 242 and 244 in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, but ask the Committee’s permission to sit down while I speak. I also support my noble friend Lady Hughes in her forceful speech about early intervention.
During our consideration of the Bill, many concerns have been raised about services working together for the benefit of children. Indeed, an earlier amendment—we discussed it some days ago, or possibly some weeks ago—was specifically about promoting integration, with lead professionals taking a role in ensuring that integration happens. I remember—again, it was some time ago—the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in one of her many excellent and wise contributions, saying that without data, strategy is not possible; the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, also hinted at that. I agree with that and I think that the amendment could support the development of a strategy for children and families at a local level.
The amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, are an extension of that concept of integration and improving data sharing in children’s centres. The noble Earl has described the need for NHS trusts to share with authorities records of live births to parents resident in their area in order to facilitate the identification of and contact with new families through children’s centres and other early outreach services. To this end, as he said, this should include the format of arrangements, the safeguarding of information, the regularity of data transfer, timescales and safeguards against inappropriate sharing.
All this reminds me of a report that some noble Lords may remember, Every Child Matters, which came out in about 2004—I can see lots of nods. This was a consultation on what matters for children, followed by a government document, in the wake of the horrendous death of Victoria Climbié and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, which concluded that the poor co-ordination of services, including health, police, education and social services, had contributed to that child and other children falling through the net. It was a seminal document. It had influence in involving children and young people in setting priorities and in getting services for children to work together, to look at their functions in working together and to talk to one another. This group of amendments shows that we need to look at all that again; we need to look at the integration of services.
As others have said, poor data sharing can prevent organisations, including children’s centres, from helping vulnerable children and their families. If they had birth data, they could address the needs of such families
early. I remember one children’s centre that I visited in the north of England having courses for young mothers. These courses became a group support initiative to talk about breastfeeding, about bringing up babies and toddlers and about which services people could access—for example, classes on a variety of issues. Crèches had been set up at the centre. Sometimes the centre was able to offer intensive support for parents who had difficulties with finances, for example.
The organisation Action for Children has set out reasons for effective data-sharing systems and has listed some difficulties, which I hope the Minister will be able to address. Those difficulties include the fact that children’s centres may be split across district and health services; there may be no data-sharing protocols; and there may be a feeling that such systems are too resource-intensive. However, there are serious impacts in not sharing data. The noble Earl has listed some such impacts of delaying the identification of vulnerable children and their families and delaying help for such families.
When data sharing is effective—according to Action for Children, it is effective in 32% of children’s centres—local arrangements have been set up between health and the local authority. There have been meetings and good relationships between, for example, health visitors and midwives, and there has been early identification of vulnerable families and of children who are likely to have difficulties, such as those with disabilities. As others have said, this help should be offered early in order to be most effective.
One of the key issues is that data sharing forms a basis for people from various disciplines who support families to meet and to talk about the concerns, not just swap bits of paper. It has always seemed to me that people talking about issues to one another, either formally or informally, is a very good way of ensuring integrated support for families. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.